Colorado Springs Functional Medicine

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The Gut

I like to think the readers of this blog are very savvy.  You read, you research, and you make informed decisions when it comes to your healthcare avenues.

Because you fall into that category, than you have probably heard and researched many conditions that can relate to problems in ‘the gut.’  Your digestive tract has huge implications into virtually every chronic illness, not just the ones that seem digestive related.

What’s funny is that I often get challenged that there’s no way the gut can have impact on behavior and that changing diet won’t affect ADHD, Autism, and other behavioral conditions.  To those people, I simply reply, ‘let’s go have a few beers and talk about it.’  Most of the time I get blank stares.

The Gut

For the ones that do get it, it’s like a light bulb just went on.  They put 2 and 2 together that if we drink alcohol, we have the potential to act stupid.  BINGO!  But you know this.  You’ve done your research.  The gut affects behavior, no big whoop.

With lots of sources pointing back to poor gut health, it’s rare to find any that say why?  There are just remedies and protocols to help you fix secondary and tertiary problem.  When you understand the why, the how, what, where, and when fall into place easier and you address more than just the gut.  You address you, not just a symptom.

You were born with a leaky gut.

In the world of gut health, everyone is quick to jump on your leaky gut as a cause of you illness, ailment, or dysfunction.  The reality is that if you didn’t have a leaky gut, you probably wouldn’t have made it alive past 6 months.  A leaky gut as an adult is an effect, not a direct cause.

We are born with a very weak and immature immune system.  We genetically require a leaky gut to allow for mom’s antibodies to pass through our gut and into our blood stream.  Your leaky gut saved your life as an infant.

Your leaky gut saved your life as an infant. Click To Tweet

Calling leaky gut a bad thing is like calling high blood pressure and an elevated heart rate bad.  It all has to do with context.  Symptoms are neither good nor bad.  Your symptoms are not a moral or ethical dilemma.  Your symptoms happen for a reason.  That reason is the context of your life.

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Fever

As a parent, seeing your kid with a fever sucks and they can be very scary.  Once you have context of the fever, you’re able to take some of the emotion out of the issue and use some logic.  Hopefully this gives you a bit of insight to assess the situation.

Why does my child have a fever?

A fever is your child’s intelligent genetic natural ability to fight off bacteria and/or a virus.  We use heat to kill off pathogens that might be lurking in our food.  Your child’s body does the exact same thing.  The cool thing is that your child’s body doesn’t have to get to 120+ degrees to kill everything.

Most bacteria do not live above 120°F, and as you increase the temperature you kill more of them. At 102°F most bacteria can no longer reproduce, which is the protective nature of human fevers. – Dr. Terry Simpson MD

A fever is an aspect of inflammation.  Inflammation is a function of your immune system.  In an acute phase, inflammation is great because it’s signaling your body to fight.  Be thankful that your child has a fever.  It means that his or her body is capable of fighting. Long term is where problems arise and this is why I think so many parents quickly jump to a fever reducer.  We hear scary stories of brain swelling and think the child’s head is going to explode.

FeverSince 102°F will drastically limit the ability of a bacteria to reproduce, let the fever ride.  With my own kids, I plan on letting it ride for 2-3 days.  If after 3 days it hasn’t come down then I look for an intervention to bring it down.  But having that game plan going into this time helps me not screw up the intelligent design of their body.

Ultimately the fever is trying to slow your kid down to conserve energy.  The immune system uses a lot of energy.  Your kid will be lethargic, that’s ok.  Being active takes a lot of energy.  Digestion takes a lot of energy.  Your kid won’t have an appetite, that’s ok.

NOTE: My kids at age 3 ½ and 1 ½ have never had a fever above 102°F last for more than a day.  They also have never had an antibiotic, Aspirin, Tylenol, or Advil.  I will detail why I think our kids have been fever less at the end of this post.  This isn’t to brag but to give hope and possibly take some fear out of parenting.

Why does a fever yo-yo?

Your child’s fever will yo-yo because your child’s body is intelligent.  A fever, much less one that goes up and down is your kid’s internal genius expressing.

You’ve probably noticed that the fever is best in the morning when your child wakes up and will be highest at night after dinner. You get frustrated because you thought your child was getting better.  You immediately think things are taking a turn for the worse and you break initial plan of letting it ride for 3 days and start easing the fever with fever reducers.

The next morning comes and the fever is better.  You back off on the fever reducers and to your dismay, the fever is worse again at night.  Panic starts, even though the fever hasn’t broken a high threshold for more than a couple hours.  When I say I plan on letting the fever ride for 3 days at 102° to 104°, I mean there’s no change.  If it’s dipping down to 101° in the morning and then back to 103° at night, I’m ok.

It sucks for the child and for the parent watching, but it’s ok.

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Vagus Baby

If you’ve heard me speak on any topic, thyroid, detox, cholesterol, hormone imbalances, or even lost productivity, hopefully you took away one message.  Your nervous system is the master coordinator and organizer of your life experiences.  Your nervous system is going to organize life into either protection mode or growth mode.

Something you would have also heard multiple times is a paraphrased quote from Dr. Bruce Lipton PhD, “You can’t be in growth and protection at the same time.”

Dr. Bruce Lipton PhD, 'You can't be in growth and protection at the same time.' Click To Tweet

What does this mean?  It means based on what is happening in your life at any current moment, the nervous system is trying to play triage whether you are in danger or not.  The nervous system will ALWAYS favor survival over sex and life over legacy.  If your body has to sacrifice your digestion, fertility, and happiness to keep your legs moving to escape a bear, it will do this 100 times out of 100.

Vagus NerveWhere we run into trouble is our nervous system is also plastic.  Imagine trying to bend a plastic fork lightly without breaking it.  It will return to its normal shape.  Keep doing this over and over again and eventually you can create a bend in the plastic.  Your nervous system is no different.  The more it uses the protection side, the more survival becomes your default setting.  The more you use logic over emotions, logic becomes your default.

What does survival look like long term?  High blood pressure, indigestion, auto-immune flare ups, chronic ear infections, constipation, headaches, hypothyroid, weight gain, inflammation, fatigue, insomnia, blood clots, infertility, PCOS, anxiety, ADHD, autism, allergies, learning disorders, memory, concentration, emotional imbalances, anger, low T, and list continues.  Survival long term drives you away from growth and repair.

Why would you be in survival long term?  It’s called modern civilization.  I wouldn’t trade our conveniences of today to go back to hunter gatherer days.  But we have to realize virtually everything we do on a daily basis today is foreign to our DNA requirements for health, longevity, and growth.  We sit too much, eat too much, worry too much, and use our healthcare system to mask the ill effects of our lifestyle too much.

If the majority of your life is spend in protection mode, how do you help the growth side of your nervous system express?

VAGUS BABY!!

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Shout Louder

I’m sure you have heard by now but California has now lost vaccine exemption laws.  In other words, if you don’t get your child vaccinated, you can’t bring them to day care or any public or private schooling.  You are vanished into the realms of home schooling and online charter schools.

Much of this policy was spear headed by the hysteria over the measles cases in Disney Land last year.  By hysteria, I mean fear and worry that much of our childhood diseases will be back to plague our kids and take their lives away.  But is that really the case?  Is it possible to take the fear and worry out of emotional decisions?

So far, the answer is no.  Each side just tends to shout louder.  If we could take the shouting away and focus on why we are afraid and worried, then I think we would have better communication from both sides of the vaccine fence, or should I say wall.  Both sides actually want the same thing.

Both sides want our kids to be as healthy as humanly possible.  The disagreement comes in how we achieve those results.  The pro-vaccine choice crowd has to shout louder since they don’t have the budget of all the organizations that want anti-choice vaccine.

As soon as you induce fear or worry, the logical, communication parts of your brain get bypassed in favor for the emotional limbic system.  It’s a fight or flight reaction.  You’re never going to look into the mouth of a Black bear and analyze his teeth.  “Maybe it’s an old bear and the teeth have all fallen out”….said no one ever that has survived a bear attack.   

Hysteria is easy when talking about health outcomes because there is that fear of the unknown.  

How do you take the fear out of a situation?  You have to take the emotion out of it.  This is easier said than done but very doable and possible.  Why fear is at an all time high is because our society has shifted towards a post-modern type population.  There are just as many millennials as there are Baby Boomers.  

A modern population is where information is valued over experience.  If I tell you not to touch the stove becasue you will burn your hand, you will most likely listen and obey. 

A post-modern population is when experience is valued over information.  In this case, I can tell you not to touch the stove but you are either going to find out for yourself or you will play on the experience of someone close to you before you believe me.  Either you have already burned your hand or you know someone that has already burned their hand and can tell you from experience not to touch the hot stove. 

I’m an analytical guy and I don’t like either scenario.  I get asked all the time how I am so confident in major decisions in my life?  It’s because I crunch numbers.  I mix the information to create my own first hand experience.  

Fear and uncertainty are relieved by authority.  Authority is training. -Ryan Holiday

If I am getting anxious about a decision or circumstance, I’ll start with worse case scenario and look at the actual odds of that happening.  In other words, I train.  

Fear and uncertainty are relieved by authority. Authority is training. -Ryan Holiday Click To Tweet

For example:  Many people make a decision to drive a motorized vehicle on a daily basis.  There is a risk to this.  The worse case scenario is death by accident.  You would think this would deter people from driving so much but it doesn’t?  Why?  Because the actual probability of death from a car accident is very minute.  Even the probability of death from drunk driving is lower than your probability of death from drunk walking.  

It’s estimated that there is 42,000 deaths each year from car accidents.  If our population is 315 million, that leaves you with a 0.013% chance of dying by car accident.  In other words, you have a 99.987% chance of living through your car ride.  I’ll take those odds in Vegas any day.  You take those odds every time you buckle your toddler into your back seat. 

Another scenario happened with my first child.  My wife had tested positive for Group B strep and they wanted to do prophylactic antibiotics during pregnancy and hold our baby for 2 days in the hospital for observation while dosing antibiotics, ‘just in case.’  Our provider kept saying that if we don’t do the antibiotics, there would be a 1 in 200 chance of death of our baby.  From an emotional standpoint, that sounds serious.

To my favor, my emotionless persona comes in handy.   

I bet we all know 200 people and to have 1 person die in that circle would hit close to home.  But when you look at the odds of it, it seems laughable.  They make a big stink at a chance of occurrence equal to 0.5%.  In other words, my child has a 99.5% chance of being perfectly fine.  Again, I’ll take those odds any day in any market. 

One of the most emotional issues that creates fear is infectious disease.  My generation (Gen X) is told we are ignorant because we didn’t see the devastation of polio and that by not vaccinating, we’re putting our kids in amazing danger of death and paralysis.  Worse yet, if we don’t vaccinate our kids, we are putting other kids at risk, even the vaccinated ones.  

Below is a screenshot from the CDC describing polio. Let’s analyze the numbers to dissipate fear. 


It says in the late 1940’s to early 1950’s, there was an average of 35,000 cases of polio.  I will assume this means 35,000 cases per year.  The population in 1950 was 150,000,000.  Therefore the chance of getting polio is 35,000/150,000,000 x 100 = 0.023%.  This is for the entire population, not just kids.   These numbers are also PRIOR to vaccine administration.   

In the first paragraph it states that 72% have no symptoms what-so-ever.  My questions is, how do you know these people had polio?  If you had no symptoms what-so-ever, what is the likelihood of you going to the doctor and getting tested for polio? 

Then it states that 24% have minor symptoms that look like the flu.  If you have a fever, sore throat, upset stomach and NO paralysis, do you automatically think you have polio?  Not a chance. Again, what are the chances of your doctor testing you for polio with that list of symptoms?

96% of the people that supposedly have polio have symptoms (or don’t have symptoms) that look nothing like scary polio.  Could the 35,000 number be inflated?  Could 33,600 of those 35,000 cases be something other than polio?  I won’t speculate, I’ll keep using the published numbers. 

1-5% develop aseptic meningitis.  Meningitis sucks.  It’s painful and you feel like you wish you were dead.  But it also states these people’s symptoms resolve. 

The scary thing is the ‘Less Than 1%.‘  These are the cases that experience paralysis.  They live but their lives are greatly affected physically and emotionally.  Of the 1% of the 35,000 cases, 5-10% OF the 1%, will die. These look like scary numbers because people just read 5-10% of people will die.  You have to read carefully. 

Let’s break the numbers down a bit and use all these numbers that are PRE-VACCINE to look at actual risk of getting polio and risk of choosing to not vaccinate. 

We have already established that your chance of getting polio prior to the vaccine was 0.023%.  In other words, in 1950,  you have a 99.977% chance of NOT getting polio at all and a zero chance of getting a vaccine to ‘prevent’ it.   

1% of polio cases (35,000 total) will be paralyzed.  1% of 35,000 is 350 people.  5-10% OF the 1%, will die.  5% of 350 is 17.5 people. 10% of 350 is 35 people.  In other words 17-35 people died each year of polio.  

Therefore your chance of paralysis from polio PRIOR to the vaccine is 0.00023% (350/150,000,000 x 100).  Your chance of DEATH from polio PRIOR to the vaccine is 0.000016% to 0.000023% (17.5 – 35/150,000,000 x 100). This goes for child or adult, they don’t specify.  

As the CDC says, your chance of paralysis increases with age, so it may be safe to say your chance of death increases with age since it’s the 5-10% of the 1% paralyzed. Maybe as adults, we should be more worried about getting the polio vaccine than giving it to our kids.  

Let’s compare that to your 0.013% chance of dying in a car accident in 2015 (when we have the strictest and strongest car safety regulations of all time).  You have a 565x to 812x higher chance of death from getting in the car to drive to the doctor to get the polio shot than you do by taking your chances of staying home and NOT getting the polio shot at all.  0.013/0.000016 or 0.000023%.  

I don’t disregard the pain and suffering of those individuals or families that experienced paralysis or death from polio.  I wish I could give them back their lives.  What kills me just as much is that a marketing campaign and governmental policy was created around the fear and worry of those individual’s experiences.  

I’m thankful for medicine in emergency situations.  Vaccines are not an emergency situation.  It’s not like they work immediately, hence the need for booster shots.  As a parent, you can take time to analyze the risks vs. benefits of the intervention and it probably won’t cost you anything.

I’ve never made a decision that I was proud of when fear or worry was involved.  Take time, analyze, and be comfortable with your decision.  The outcomes has to be ‘health.’  When we turn that into ‘most vaccinated,’ we get different results.

West Virginia and Mississippi have the strictest vaccine laws.  Mississippi has the highest vaccine rate in the US.  They also have the highest infant mortality rate, almost 100% higher than California.  West Virginia’s infant mortality rate is 52% higher than California’s.  Do we have to wait for California’s rates to match those other states with the strictest vaccine laws to change our health outcomes?  I hope not. 

I’m not saying the vaccines killed all the babies.  What I’m saying is that we’re making policy changes based on other states that have the poorest health outcomes.  Despite California’s high vaccine exemption rate, they have one of the best infant mortality rates.  It shouldn’t matter the vaccine rate if you can boast a low infant mortality rate or boast high health outcomes.  The problem is that policy makers put vaccine rate and health outcomes in the same sentence and it’s just not true.

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Before You Detox

Detoxes are like CrossFit Hero WODS.  You know it’s going to suck, you do it anyway, and feel good because it’s over, not necessarily because of what you did.  I always leave with the same question.  ‘Was that necessary?’

For you CrossFitters, the answer is always, “yes.”  For you detox people, I’m not so sure.  Before you detox, you have to consider a few things.

1. Are Your Done Toxifying Yourself?

I can’t tell you how many people have told me they did a sugar detox.  I like to ask, ‘why did you detox from sugar?’  I get a variety of answers that come down to a basic mutual point that they have been overloaded on sugar and needed a break.Detox Colorado Springs

“How did you break your detox?”  I can’t tell you how many will break a detox or fast by consuming the substance they were detoxing or fasting from.  For some reason that’s justified in their minds.  I just did a sugar fast, now I can have that donut.  Let’s look at it from a different perspective.

“Hey Dr. Kurt.  I’m going to do a Crystal Meth detox.  I’ve just been using so much lately, my body needs a break.  But when it’s all over, I get to break my detox with a fat rock of Okie Coke.  I can’t wait to tell you how great I feel.”

 

Others are concerned about the industrial chemicals they are exposed to on a daily basis.  Though we can’t control all our exposure, we can control our home base.  These toxins will invade your body through what you eat, what you breath, and what you put on your skin.  I think the skin one gets over looked often.

Just think of all the products that you use on your skin; bath soap, shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, sanitizer, perfume, laundry detergents from your clothes, moisturizers, bug spray, sunscreen, dish soap, deodorant, hair products, and many more.  Before you detox, start cleaning these out of your daily rituals by replacing them.  We love the Toxic Free products from the Healthy Home Company.

Until you have committed to stop re-toxifying your life, don’t consider doing a detox.  It’s like the celebrity that is in and out of rehab.  Just because they are in rehab, it doesn’t fool anyone into thinking they are sober.  Stop fooling yourself into thinking you’re doing something healthy by doing a detox if you’re just going to have to do it all over again in a month.

2. Is Your Body Strong Enough to Support a Detox?

I’m not a fan of starting people with a detox for the reason that their body is not properly supported to start.  The stomach, liver, gall bladder, kidneys, small and large intestines are all involved with detoxing harmful substances when you come into contact with them. Part of the process is making the toxin less harmful, the other part is actual elimination.Detox Colorado Springs

If these processes aren’t supported, you may free up toxins, but if you can’t eliminate them properly, you will just recirculate those toxins.  It’s kind of like how a kid tricks you into thinking they ate what’s on their plate.  Instead of one lump of food, they spread it all around the plate in small quantities to make it appear that there is hardly any left.

Make sure your systems are supported before you start leaching.

3. Measure Your Outcomes.

How do you know you detoxed efficiently?  What outcomes are you using?  What substance are you trying to eliminate?  Feeling miserable is not a successful measurement of the effectiveness of the detox.  Just because you feel like crap, doesn’t mean it’s working.

Go ahead and do your detox but I would challenge you to get some lab testing prior to and after completion of your detox.  This could be a urine toxic element test that could test for a host of toxic metals like aluminum, mercury, lead, nickel, tungsten, and many more.  Maybe you test for a methylation profile to see if you even have enough support prior to attempting a detox.

There are many options and paths.  Just be sure to measure your outcomes.  Not sure where to start?  Book a complimentary 15 minute phone consultation.

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Guide to Supplements

The supplement industry is a trillion dollar industry.  Each company that makes a supplement claims that theirs is the best.  With so many to choose from and so man claiming they are the best, what do you do?  Hopefully this guide to supplements will help your decision making.

1. Remember it’s a Supplement.

I think in the world of supplements, people often forget that supplements are designed to SUPPLEMENT what you eat.  Supplements are based on the premise that you’re filling in the gaps between what you do eat and what you should eat.  Often times, people have it reversed.  They start with the supplements and then fill the gap with what they are eating.  Eat first, supplement second.

2. Start with the Basics.

When you decide to start supplementing, start first with ones that are based on what the human genetic code requires.  You know the body requires certain vitamins, minerals, and fats.  Start with supplements that provide vitamins, minerals, and fats.  These are the ones that aren’t that sexy.  They aren’t the latest and greatest herb or isolated antioxidant.  These are based on food and should come from food.

If you pick up a multi-vitamin or multi-mineral, the label should look more like a food label with the ingredients listed than isolate forms that were picked and chosen from all different sources.

Sure an apple has certain vitamins and minerals but what you can’t account for is the synergistic effect of the apple as a whole.  You can’t isolate the thousands of phytonutrients and antioxidants from the larger vitamins and minerals.  They all work together and when you keep them together, they provide a larger impact than just the sum of its parts.

Same thing with a fish oil.  The fish oil content should be just like if you picked up a fish and squeezed it.  You’ll see fish oil supplements that have an altered EPA and DHA fat content.  The manufacturer did this to make it look unique, sexy, and make it proprietary.  If it’s altered, it’s not fish.  It’s some human form of franken-fish.

With that sJuice Plusaid, I like to start people on an EPA:DHA Omega 3 and a whole food based supplement.  My supplements of choice are from Innate Choice for the fish oil and Juice Plus for the whole food based supplement.  Both the fish oil and Juice Plus have product labels that look like a food label.

Something really unique about Juice Plus is that they have a children’s program where kids ages 4 through college can get the product for free for 4 years, when they have an ‘adult’ (anyone over 13 years old) sponsor.  In other words, it’s a buy one, get one free deal.  Your only requirement is that you have to answer some very easy, anonymous surveys every few months.  They are tracking how people’s lifestyles are changing when adding a simple step like a whole food based supplement.  Questions revolve around lifestyle decisions like, ‘do you eat more fruits and veggies? or is your kid missing less days at school?’

Another cool thing about Juice Plus is that they have put their own time and money to do clinical research on their products.  It’s rare to find any supplement company that does this.  Most supplement companies, even the other ones I recommend for specifics are using borrowed research.  There was research somewhere done on a specific nutrient and they use that research to support their product.  Juice Plus looks at their specific product, not borrowed research from any ingredient in their product.

Cool facts about Innate Choice is that they only make the basic necessities.  They have the highest standard for their products that I have seen from a purity standpoint and make sure they are all 3rd party tested and validated for purity or they discontinue the product.

There’s 2 others that I would consider essential and part of your basics when starting to supplementing or cutting back to the basics.

Vitamin D is an essential hormone in the body produced from sun exposure.  The problem is that media and Big Pharma has demonized sun exposure when nothing could be further from the truth.  As a result, I see more and more vitamin D deficiency when I run lab panels on people.  Another problem is that Vitamin D has a conversion pathway that has to pass through the liver, kidneys, and DNA.  With our daily toxic load, sometimes it’s not the exposure or consumption of Vitamin D but the conversion.

We use one from either Innate Choice or Thorne.  Thorne is less expensive.

Probiotics are my 4th basic essential to start when supplementing.  There should be 10 beneficial, symbiotic bacteria to every 1 human cell.  In essence, we’re more bug than we are human. Again, since the advent of antibiotics, anything resembling a germ, bacterial, or bug has been demonized and we have dropped the antimicrobial A bomb on our food supply, cleaning products, and now even clothing.

Companies are coming around but there are still things to look for.  Make sure it’s free of wheat, gluten, corn, soy, yeast, dairy, and anything artificial.  It’s estimated that we should have 30,000 different species of bugs in our gut.  Prior to agriculture we got these bugs from eating off the land, before we had dairy, before we had pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and nutricides (a word I just made up to categorize farming practices that don’t replenish nutrient content of soils or focus on mono-cropping).

There were bugs on virtually everything we ate.  Some were harmful but the great majority were not.  When looking for a probiotic, look for one that has many different strains and is from a vegetarian source.  My family and I use the Innate Choice one.

Don’t Guess…Test

If you are doing those 4 and are consistently doing it and still not experiencing that level of health you desire, then I’m a proponent of looking to your biochemistry to see what needs support.

Though humans are virtually identical genetically, our life experiences are not.  Starting with the basics, on top of a pure and sufficient lifestyle, should satisfy the requirements of your DNA.  The problem is that due to our life experiences, this can shift what systems need more support.  This plays into the phenotype of your DNA (the expression).

You and I are are 99.9% genetically identically identical.  The 0.1% is what makes us unique.  This is what is known as your phenotype, how your DNA is expressed.  If you drink a gallon of anti-freeze, you may get cancer, I may get depressed, someone else may get skin problems.  It’s toxic to all three of us but it can manifest differently.  The symptoms can be misleading of what’s actually happening.

With the easy access to information today, many people are playing whack-a-mole-symptom-chaser with supplements.  This is no different than prescribing medicine based on symptoms.  I can’t tell you how many patients have come in with a small trash bag full of supplements because the ‘expert’ at the local health food store was recommending them based on their symptoms.

“I’m taking this for my thyroid.”

“Do you have a thyroid problem?”

“I don’t know, but I’m really fatigued and can’t lose weight.”

“Let’s stop guessing and test.  It could be a thyroid problem, but it could be a thyroid conversion problem.  It could be a methylation problem.  It could be an estrogen problem.  It could be an adrenal problem.  It could be an inflammation problem.  It could be an auto-immune problem.  It could be detox problem.  it could be a Vitamin D problem.”

The scenarios are vast and guessing will most likely leave you frustrated, discouraged, and eating more pills and capsules than actual food.  This is a shout from a patient that had a very clean lifestyle and did the basics for a while.  She still didn’t have the energy she was hoping for so we dug a bit deeper and got individualized and figured out what needed support.  She was pretty confident it was her thyroid. Labs showed other wise.

A couple things I’ve noticed since being on my doctor prescribed supplements… My memory works again, my recovery from working out is really fast, I don’t need to sleep as much/I have more energy and I handle stress a TON better. The memory one I think is the biggest for me.  It’s really nice to not feel like my ‘computer’ is completely frozen and that I will be able to recall what I want in a minute instead of never…I love my Piyo workouts even more now! Now that I can recover like a normal person from a workout I can do the harder workouts all the time and not feel like I am dead after.

In a day and age where time is as valuable as money, stop wasting your finite resources.  You can always earn more money.  You can’t ever gain more time in a day.  If you’re already on the fit, fuel, feel strategy in addition to basic supplements but still feeling foggy, then it’s time to stop guessing and get tested.  Not sure what the next step is?  Feel free to set up a complimentary 15 minute phone consultation.

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Hormone Imbalance Treatment

What do you think of when you hear the term ‘Hormone Imbalance?’

Weight Gain?

Loss of Muscle Mass?

Poor Sex Drive?

Fatigue?

Anxiety, Depression, Irritability, or Brain Fog?Hormone Imbalance Treatment

Poor Sleep?

Hot Flashes?

Sugar Cravings?

What hormones come to mind if you’re seeking hormone imbalance treatment?

Estrogen?

Testosterone?

Progesterone?

Thyroid?

These initial impressions just scratch the surface concerning hormone imbalances.  Before you even think about the specific hormones, you should back track and look at what coordinates and organizes your hormones, the nervous system.  If you’re not addressing the nervous system, you’re not getting to the route cause of your hormone imbalance.

The nervous system organizes and coordinates your life. The hormone that is released is just an effect of how your nervous system (you) is interpreting your environment.  This organization can be generally lumped into 2 categories.

Life is organized into PROTECTION or it’s organized into GROWTH.

Dr. Bruce Lipton PhD says it best, “You can’t be in growth and protection at the same time.”

What does that mean for your hormones and the results of your hormone imbalance treatment?  Unless you address the underlying nervous system imbalance, your desired results probably won’t be lasting or satisfactory.

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Hospice or Health Care

What’s the difference between Hospice Care and traditional Health Care?  Nothing.  Think about it.

The Providers:

Providers in either scenario are generally kind, have a great intention to help people in need, and genuinely care about the patient.

The Outcomes:

The outcome in either situation is to make you comfortable.  If you have terminal cancer, they want you to feel little to no pain, as you pass away gently.  If you have high blood pressure, hormone imbalance, chronic pain, behavioral issues, and immune system imbalances, you are given something to numb the symptoms as you continue down the course that got you in that situation.  The best possible outcome in either scenario is to numb you.

The Delivery System:

The quickest route to make sure you don’t feel anything is through medication.  In both scenarios, the patient is given a chemical intervention.  Why not alcohol?  Why not Mary Jane?  Wouldn’t they be cheaper?  Isn’t one of the biggest complaints about our health care system the cost?

The Results:

People die early with less symptoms.  You wouldn’t say someone in hospice care is healthy.  Why do you say someone on 5 medications is healthy?  Even the insurance company doesn’t think so.  They know to the penny how much more someone on medication is going to cost them in the long run and therefore raise premiums.  Why is it harder to get life insurance?  They know you will die sooner and therefore charge you a higher premium to be covered in case you die…early.

You and I can have the same cholesterol levels.  You take Lipitor to suppress it, I do it through lifestyle.  Who do you think pays more in insurance premiums for the exact same coverage?

With any system touted as health care, the primary outcome has to be health.  Less symptoms is not health.  With this being an election year, see if any candidate mentions this or do they just spout out a plan for ‘who is going to pay for it.’  Until we change the question from, ‘who is paying for this,’ to ‘what are we actually paying for,’ we’ll be in a chronic state of discouragement.

Policy change will be slow if it ever changes.  That leaves you to create health in yourself and family.  Choose wisely.

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Gluten Free Fail

Walk down the aisle of any grocery store and labels that brag about being ‘Gluten-Free’ will smack you in the face.  When this started, I thought it was awesome since we are a 95% gluten-free household.

Now I think it’s getting absolutely ridiculous.  For one, produce and other whole foods that would never contain gluten are now being marketed as gluten-free.  Have you seen the gluten-free apples?  They are so much better than the apples that contain gluten.  This just preys on the ignorant and I think this marketing is deceitful.

And for those anti-GMO labeling people, adding that ‘gluten free’ tag on the packaging didn’t raise the price at all.  Stop spreading your genetically altered crap that adding GMO labels to packaging is going to raise prices for consumers.  How many of your products already tote the labels of ‘all natural,’ ‘low-fat,’ and ‘low-calorie’ without increasing pricing?

Another reason is that products that are being marketed as gluten-free contain so many other ingredients and chemicals that if you looked at the ingredient list, gluten would be the least of your worries.  Again, the marketers have won because someone sees the gluten-free claim and then ignores all the other chemicals.

Gluten Free Paint

One of those ‘other’ ingredients is sugar.  The next time you see something gluten-free in a box, count how many ingredients that include sugar.  Most often those ingredients end in –ose.  These products get loaded up with sugar to make them taste half way edible.  Pixie Sticks are technically gluten-free, eat up.

This is why I have seen many people gain weight by going gluten-free.

Third, the FDA’s standard of Gluten Free isn’t really gluten-free.  The food must contain 20 or fewer parts per million.  The problem is that even at these small doses, the body can mount a reaction.  Just look at vaccines.  The antigen (the virus) is often diluted to less than 20 parts per million and the body still has a reaction to produce antibodies.  Don’t get caught thinking that such small amounts have no affect on the body.

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Incredible Insulin

Pure and simple, the better you are at regulating insulin, the better life you will live.  I’m not talking about destroying your body to the point where you have to check your blood sugar 3x/day and regulate the spikes with an extra injection of insulin.  Even if you’re a type 1 diabetic with an insulin pump, your choices can have a dramatic effect on the amount and frequency of usage.

If I’m speaking at an event and the topic of insulin arises, which it most likely will, people are quick to blurt out, ‘it regulates sugar.’  Yes, you are correct but this just scratches the surface to how insulin will impact your life, for better or worse, in sickness and in health.

Weightloss Rollercoaster

Yes, it is true that insulin reacts to elevations in blood sugar. As blood sugar levels rise, this is a signal to your nervous system that you have more energy than is needed at this point in time.  You can either drastically increase your energy demands by sprinting and doing box jumps or you can rely on insulin to store it for later.

Your body will first store it in the liver and muscles in the form of glycogen.  If you added up all the stored energy in your liver and muscles, it may last you 24 hours.  This is why exercise alone, though fantastic for brain development and nervous system regulation, often fails as a weight loss strategy for many people.  Someone is looking to burn off that spare tire.  Unless you plan on exercising non-stop for 24 hours, you may not get past the stored energy in your liver and muscles to touch the stuff around your midsection.

Female Athlete Is Performing Box Jumps At Gym

What kills your 6 pack dreams even more is that you reward yourself for all that hard work you just accomplished.  You know better than to eat garbage.  Instead you go for the ‘healthy’ low fat, low calorie goods.  In reality, you just ate a 1/2 cup of sugar, which gets redeposited back into your liver and muscles.  Since you didn’t use ALL your stored liver and muscle glycogen during exercise and just consumed more sugar than you burned off, you added another layer of insulation for the winter.

The stored energy that targets the butt, gut, and thighs isn’t glycogen, it’s stored in the form triglycerides.  You’ve seen these on your lab work.  Because it’s fat, I’m sure your well intentioned cardiologist told you to eat a diet high in complex carbohydrates and low fat.  “If we need to eliminate fat, than we have to lower our fat intake.”  The only thing that cardiologist did was keep himself in business with advice that resembles assisted suicide.  Since ‘diet and exercise’ didn’t work for you, then you have no hope other than taking drugs.  Sound familiar?

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